The Glimpse (34 page)

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh shite.’

Ana laughed and cried in the same breath. She reached out and took Tamsin’s hand. They sat side by side, no longer trying to hide the gasps and sobs that racked their 312

bodies. After a minute, Ana rubbed her nose with the back of her free hand.

‘I’m going to get out of here,’ she said.

‘That’s the spirit.’ Tamsin sighed, letting go of her last tears.

‘Next time they take me to the tanks,’ Ana continued,

‘I’l make sure they drown me.’

‘OK, it’s official. You’re mad.’

‘Wil you look after Jasper for me? If I make it to one of the City hospitals, I’l find a way to contact his mum. I’l get you both out of here.’

Tamsin inhaled deeply and shook her head. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but that’s totaly mental.’

don’t appreciate the offer, but that’s totaly mental.’

‘Wil you keep an eye on him for me?’

‘Ana, you could kil yourself trying to do that.’

‘I’m not like you. I won’t survive here.’

‘Everyone feels like that at first.’

Ana shook her head. Tamsin looked away, bit her top lip, considering. Finaly, she spoke.

‘On one condition.’

‘OK. What?’

‘If you make it, you don’t do anything stupid or dangerous to try and get me out.’

Ana frowned and folded her arms over her chest.

‘You have to promise me, Ana. You risked too much coming here for Jasper. I won’t have you doing anything so risky for me.’

‘But you can’t stay here.’

‘Maybe Jasper’s worth it, but I’m not.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

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‘He’s the son of the executive director of Novastra. His brother mysteriously died three years ago and now he’s supposedly been abducted by terrorists while his dad’s in the middle of negotiating a major deal with the government for BenzidoxKid. Get him out. Get him to government for BenzidoxKid. Get him out. Get him to talk. Concentrate on the big picture.’

Ana shook her head. The tears weled up al over again.

‘You always knew it, didn’t you? Even when we were fifteen, you knew there was something weird about the Pure test.

You never bought into it.’

‘You have to promise me you won’t take any stupid risks trying to get me out . . . Promise.’

Ana stared at her friend. The devastation she’d felt seven months ago as every effort to discover Tamsin’s whereabouts failed, came thudding down on her. She finaly nodded, then reached over and clutched her best friend in her arms. ‘I missed you,’ she choked.

After a moment, Tamsin hugged her back. The two of them held each other as though it was al that kept them from being torn away into oblivion.

*

The folowing morning after breakfast, Ana waited anxiously for the orderlies to cal her name. Of the thirty or so girls who slept in Studio 8, she was one of only four summoned for extra ‘treatment’. Eyes on her feet, butter-flies in her stomach, she offered her wrists to be cuffed.

Once Orderly McCavern had linked the girls together, she led them out into a mild, late March morning.

Ana stopped short, blinking at an expanse of summer-Ana stopped short, blinking at an expanse of summer-314

blue sky. Sunshine warmed her hair. Spring had arrived to say goodbye. The chain tugged Ana’s wrists, propeling her across the yard. Once again, they passed through the wash-block and came out near the empty car park. They crossed the cattle bridge and turned towards the riverside warehouses.

Reaching the door to the hangar with the tanks, McCavern removed Ana’s cuffs. Ana lurched forward, ducking under the roler-shutter before McCavern could jab her with a truncheon. Inside, she heard a click and a buzz of electricity, folowed by the clattering descent of the shutter. The tanks glowed dimly in the darkness. Ana stood absolutely stil, worried the slightest move might make her throw up. Eventualy, a far door opened. Soft-soled feet scurried across the studio. The nurse from Ana’s previous trip to the tanks appeared at her side, cautiously reaching to remove Ana’s gown. Ana limply submitted.

Dressed in the bra and knickers she’d left home in an eternity ago, Ana climbed the steps to the nearest tank and dropped inside. Without prompting, she lay on the freezing metal bed. A strap tightened around her chest.

She closed her eyes. A distant click of high-heeled shoes echoed off the wals.

Cusher.

Cold metal bars curved over Ana’s wrists. The nurse locked down her thighs and feet. The low hum of a water pump began. Liquid gushed into the tank, spattering against the hard plastic floor. Ana breathed in. Chil air mixed with bleach filed her lungs. She relaxed her feet, mixed with bleach filed her lungs. She relaxed her feet, her fingers, her neck, alowing her body to sink into the metal 315

frame beneath her. Water tickled against the underside of her body. Goose bumps broke out on the tops of her arms and legs.

‘I think we might see some improvement today,’ Cusher said. Inside the tank, with the splattering and sloshing of water, Cusher’s voice had no direction, no origin. It was everywhere at once, possessing the air.

Water grew over Ana like a second skin. She kept her breathing steady and light, determined not to inhale deeply.

But when the time came, her body involuntarily closed her airways and she sucked in her breath. Fuly immersed, she tried to relax. Pockets of oxygen in her lungs quickly burnt away. Pressure built in her head.

Let go, breathe in,
she told herself. But she didn’t. Her head began to feel like it would explode. She thought it couldn’t get worse. But it could. It did. The pain widened and deepened. Fog seeped around the edges of her mind.

She tugged against the bars holding her feet and wrists.

Metal bit her skin. Her muscles sucked up the last vestiges of remaining oxygen.

She gasped for air. Water poured down her throat. Into her lungs.

I don’t want to die. Please. I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to die. Please. I don’t want to die.

Panic. Thrashing. Trying to scream.

Her thoughts became indiscernible shapes. Like objects covered in snow. Everything muffled. No visibility. No horizon. Whiteout.

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26

Ashby

Ashby had spent the last forty-eight hours supplicating Charlotte Cusher to meet with him like he was a bloody door-to-door salesman. Not today. Today he had a letter from the Secretary of State for Health, officialy permitting him to oversee Emily Thomas’s mental rehabilitation.

Today Ana was coming home with him, one way or another. Screw the Board and their three-month discharge procedure. He’d fight his way into the compound, use the Paralyser, immobilise everyone in a twenty-metre radius if he had to. Hel, he could get the place closed down in a shot. A simple cal to Felix Post on the Mental Health Investigation Committee would do it. Ashby knew the rumours – missing attire, meagre meals, government funds lining staff pockets while the children went barefoot. He’d chosen Three Mils for Jasper precisely because of its reputation for easy admittance and patient neglect.

Ashby’s saloon car, driven by Jack Dombrant, turned into Sugar House Lane. Barren wasteland lay on either side of the road up to the old tidal mil. Metal rattled beneath the wheels as they drove over the cattle bridge.

beneath the wheels as they drove over the cattle bridge.

Ashby gazed at the gloomy landscape. When he’d realised Ana had sneaked 317

out into the City, he’d never in his wildest dreams thought she would wind up here.

Four days ago, Jack had informed him that Ana was staying with a crowd connected to the Enlightenment Project. Ashby had scarcely believed it. Then they’d connected a flutter of activity from Ana’s interface to travel tickets purchased by Lila Aimes. It had taken almost a day, but they’d traced Lila Aimes to Bromley-by-Bow train station.

A team had searched al the local CCTV cameras until they’d found pictures of Ana looking God-awful and doing the most bizarre thing Ashby had ever seen –

entering Three Mils of her own free wil.

Since then, he’d been applying pressure on Charlotte, pooling his resources, puling in every favour he could think of to get Ana out. Charlotte, the bitch, hadn’t even come to colect Emily Thomas’s psychiatric file when Ashby had delivered it in person to the reception. And she hadn’t responded to any of his requests to see Ana/Emily.

The car puled up at an iron gate. A security guard approached. Ashby lowered his electric window and produced his permit.

‘Sorry, sir,’ the guard said leaning in. ‘Power cut. Should be back on any minute now.’

‘How long’s it been out?’

‘Ten minutes,’ the guard said. ‘They’re working on the back-up generator.’

Over the last decade, despite a continual decline in national power consumption, the power surges and blackouts were steadily getting worse. Ashby took out his permit and held it up before his interface. Down the right side of the 318

white card a list of hospitals and clinics he was associated with appeared. He touched his finger to the Three Mils header. An icon spun beside the header as the computer began searching. He unzipped his case, took out his pad, and linked it up to his interface. A moment later, he had the Three Mils home page on his portable screen. He typed in his six-digit pass code. The mainframe opened, providing him access to everything on the database, from financial records to staff log-in times.

The records had cut out at 10.04.24, almost fifteen minutes ago. He checked the file for Emily Thomas.

She’d been logged into a tank at 10.02.42. Less than two minutes before the power cut.

The tanks were automatic. They ran on the main power grid like everything else. Ashby began to calculate. Forty to fifty seconds for the tank to fil up, thirty seconds under water, forty to fifty seconds to drain totaly . . . He rubbed his locked jaw. It would have been close. He exhaled, trying to relax. Could have been worse though.

A distant siren disturbed his returning calm. He glanced out the rear window. Though he couldn’t see anything, he could hear the siren approaching.

Jack reversed the car and puled over on to the grass.

A battery-powered ambulance emerged on the horizon, kicking up dust. Ashby alighted from the car, leaving the passenger door dangling in the wind. He strode to the outhouse where the security guard now peered from his buletproof window.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.

‘It’s here,’ the guard said into his interface mic. With a loud clunk, the steel security door released. Using his 319

shoulder, the guard thrust open the usualy automated door so that the steel back hit a magnetic wal grid. The door stuck in place. At the same moment, brakes squealed, and a whiff of burning tyre filed the air. The passenger side of the ambulance opened. A paramedic jumped out.

‘The power’s down,’ the security guard said, trailing the paramedic to the rear of the ambulance. The paramedic mounted. From inside the ambulance he grabbed a medical kit with defibrilator, oxygen masks, and other resuscitation paraphernalia. ‘You’l have to come through the security booth,’ the guard explained.

‘Get someone to help you bring the gurney,’ the paramedic caled to the ambulance driver. ‘If these gates don’t open we may have to get her back through security.’

Ashby noted the gender reference. He nodded at Jack who now stood beside the saloon, and the Warden swept in to help the ambulance driver. Meanwhile, Ashby folowed the security guard and the paramedic.

The paramedic looked experienced and controled; his The paramedic looked experienced and controled; his resuscitation gear hung on his shoulder as though it were no weight at al.

The security guard stepped aside to alow the paramedic through the security outhouse, then attempted to close the door. Ashby shoved his arm in the way. The lock had to be bolted down manualy and he refused to budge.

The guard gave in at once. The three of them ran the length of the narrow security building out on to the other side of Sugar House Lane. The guard pointed down a driveway to a cluster of warehouses facing the river.

‘Stage D,’ he panted. ‘Second left.’

‘Is she out of the water?’ the paramedic asked.

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The breathless guard shrugged.

Ashby began sprinting. His hard soles slammed the tarmac, jarring his knees. He was used to running, but in trainers. He swung second left and saw stage ‘D’, the first studio in a long row.

‘This way,’ he caled to the paramedic behind him. The loading access shutter hung three-quarters open.

The two men entered the dark stage. Daylight reached in ten feet before dwindling to grey. Light also shafted in from the loading access on the opposite side, at the furthest end of the stage.

‘Cavalry’s arrived,’ a voice said. Ashby looked around and saw an orderly leaning against the stage entrance, smoking.

smoking.

‘Over here,’ a younger voice caled from thirty feet away, where the doors opened on to the river. The paramedic jogged into darkness and dropped his kit by one of the tanks. Through the murk, Ashby could make out a nurse bent over a prostrate form. The paramedic took over, checking vitals, inspecting the limp body before him.

Ashby sidled closer. He stopped a few feet away. Sweat beaded on the palms of his hand, under his arms, in his hairline.

‘Unavoidable, I’m afraid.’ Charlotte Cusher’s brittle voice cleaved the air. Ashby startled. He hadn’t been aware of her lurking nearby. Charlotte rubbed her neck.

‘The girl was in the tanks when the power went down.’

The paramedic thumped down on the girl’s chest. He instructed the dripping wet nurse to continue giving mouth-to-mouth; then he removed a defibrilator from his kit.

‘The ties have to be very secure,’ Charlotte continued.

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‘Not easy to undo. At least not when they’re two foot under water.’

‘She was the only one under when the power went out?’

Ashby asked.

‘She was the only one in the tanks at al today,’ Charlotte replied.

Ashby grew stil. No, this girl couldn’t have been the only one. Because that would mean . . .